


Bare necessities

by marieincolour



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Humor, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-07
Updated: 2012-09-07
Packaged: 2017-11-13 18:48:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/506571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marieincolour/pseuds/marieincolour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> Dean injures both arms (as per the suggestion of <a href="http://angeltrap.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://angeltrap.livejournal.com/"></a><b>angeltrap</b>, though I didn't make it burns. Sorry x)) and is too proud to accept help. At first. You'll just have to read the rest for the oh so <i>unexpected </i>end. </p>
            </blockquote>





	Bare necessities

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** Yeah, okay. Excuses coming up. I'm falling asleep at the keyboard, guys, but for some reason I can't stop. So. I'm posting this mostly in the hopes that it will let me go to bed and that a read through in the morning wont be  _too_ painful.   
> This is schmoopy and silly and if you're here for angst or any real content, I suggest you move on quietly and leave me to my Friday night silliness.  
> 

 

  
**Bare Necessities**  


It goes down both in slow motion and fast forwards all at once, like his vision is a VCR on drugs that just can't make up its mind, sometimes stalling in a way that makes everything twitch forth and back just to spite him. And annoyingly enough, it's the bad parts that slow down the most. The grind of bone on bone as he catches himself tipping forwards into the open grave, the feeling of wood splinters digging into his skin, through flesh and sinew.

At first nothing hurts, and there is no blood. There is only disfigured stretches of arm, elbow pointing the wrong way and bone pipes poking against skin. Wood splinters longer than his foot, some parts rotted through and holed with worms penetrating skin still held down tight by the intruding parts. Then the skin lets up. Pops further up the wood as the initial penetration passes and blood wells, pain blossoms and then floods, and time slows even more. 

  
He goes to grab his shotgun to help Sam out, one on one with a mean ass ghost, but even the thought of moving makes him tear up in pain. 

When Sam finally focuses on him, because he's finally got the time and what the fuck ever, Dean is too busy breathing calmly and regularly and not crying to know if the ghost will try to kill them both in a minute. Sam doesn't inform him, and really. Dean couldn't care less. 

  
It takes both of their joined efforts to get him out of that grave. Both, if you consider Dean trying not to faint and almost failing as Sam hoists him to his feet and then into his arms to tip him gently onto the dirt and grass next to the hole in the ground to be an effort.

Dean does. 

He watches through hooded eyes, glazed with pain and tears as the sky suddenly floods with orange light, smoke and little pieces of burnt wood and ash flying on the warm air, and waits for a better day. There's a burn in his arms, through his shoulders and up his throat, pulsating against his chest bone and down into his stomach as he waits. And waits. 

And..

  
-

  
Dean doesn't remember much until he's in a bed with starched sheets and scratchy 80's blankets, foam pillows that make his neck hurt and a headache that makes him swim and moan and twitch all at once. Oh, he knows he was present. Remembers the pain, flashes of color and.. Well. Mostly pain, but he knows he was there, and awake for most of it, if you don't count the moments after the doctors set the breaks in his arms and patched him up, but that's mostly down to the drugs. It's just not very important stuff to memorize, and he lets go of it as soon as he can. Pushes it away the moment it tries to the surface.

  
There's noise around him. Shuffling and conversation and movement. His eyes feel dry and warm, and he focuses on that for a moment without really looking at anything. Empty gaze staring out at the room and finally coming to rest on Sam's face – about a foot closer than normal –, which is talking to him.

  
_Shit._

  
“Huh?”

Sam looks faintly exasperated. 

“You feeling all right now? Any pain?”

“Pain?” he repeats, like one of those parrots kids buy that record what you say and play it back, feels as stupid as a boiled potato. 

“Nnnnnno.”

The 'n'-noise makes his tongue tickle. He bites it. 

“Good” Sam mumbles, looks amused now as he stretches out an arm to fiddle with something on Dean's torso. He twitches back, and then groans. Feels pain throb in his hand as his fingers twitch in response.

“Don't move. Just be still!” Sam orders, and Dean leans his head back in an attempt to _not_ vomit all down his front. Sam sounds a bit annoyed, like he's repeating himself. Dean takes the opportunity to take stock of himself.

  
A moment later he feels like that one chapter in Harry Potter where he loses all the bones in his arm and his arm doesn't look like an arm but more like a rubber hose with sausages on one end because holy _shit_ the purple tube with white edges and fat little red sausages poking out one end is bent oddly like it really _is_ a rubber hose and not an arm and doesn't even remotely resemble the thing that normally helps him wank and why the _hell_ didn't anyone give him skelegro? Or maybe he's one of those slimy toy hands with the long tail at the back that you could throw and it would stick to windows and holy _shit_ wouldn't that be the best thing ever?

  
There's a snort of laughter above him and a quick look up at Sam makes him think he _might_ be lacking a verbal filter and that he just revealed his fondness for.. Well, wanking is friggin' obvious, so.. 

  
So. One purple cast, armpit to fingertips, which seems to be _completely_ ignoring the anatomical fact that there should be an elbow somewhere in the middle. It looks more like a purple banana from his angle.

  
Sam laughs again, and Dean clenches his teeth to keep himself quiet. 

  
His other arm.. Well. _Fuck._ Oddly enough there seems to be pieces of the cast missing – covered instead by sterile bandages. Two fingers are in the cast. Actually.. Three. Three fingers are in the cast. His thumb, his index and his middle finger. His wrist, too, but at least this hand isn't a banana.

  
One quick look up at Sam lets him know that clenching _works._ Awesome. 

  
And that one's red. 

  
“What's with the colors?” He finally asks, and Sam raises one eyebrow. 

  
“You've had two hands broken, a dislocated elbow, several fingers, had about twenty stitches and you're on the strongest course of antibiotics I've ever seen in pill form, and _that's_ the first question you've got?”

  
“Dude.”

  
He's _baked._

  
“Glad to see the pills aren't dulling your wit. You don't even do weed, Dean” Sam says, but his eyes stray to one of the orangey-brown pill jars stacked on their shared nightstand. It's quiet for a little bit, and Dean's eyes are just starting to droop again, that pleasant thrum of painkillers and strong drugs pumping through his veins. He hopes it's there to stay for a little while, because _comfy,_ but then Sam's talking again. 

  
“Huh?” he asks, and looks down to see if his arm is still a banana, because this feels like deja vu. Sam rolls his eyes. 

“You thirsty?”

And _that,_ despite his blood having been replaced with antibiotics and morphine, sets it all in perspective. Really fucking harshly, too. 

  
“Dude, I'm not going to be thirsty for at _least_ a month.”

  
That sets his mind to other things, and he feels his cheeks fill with blood.

  
“Yeah.. That's not going to work. Look, we don't have the funds to hire a nurse, and..”

“I want a nurse.”

“No.”

“I want a _nurse.”_

“Seriously? No. You're like... America's most wanted.”

“Give me a fucking nurse, Sam! _Now.”_

He's dangerously close to whining now, and not only for hot nurse sex. Okay, a _little_ for hot nurse sex, but mostly for his dignity. 

“Dean.. Come on, man.”

“ _NURSES.”_ Dean says, his voice as forceful as he can make it under the soft, purple cloud he's in the middle of. 

“Just.. Look, I got you silly straws. I'll just hold it, and you can suck.” Sam looks oddly hopeful, which sets Dean off giggling. Sam rolls his eyes.

  
But in his drugged mind, a yellow silly straw with a little bear hanging on for dear life and a can of sprite held by his ginormous baby brother is like a little bit of independence. 

He hangs onto that idea, however ludicrous and morphine-driven it is, because he thinks he just might need it over the next however many weeks until he can..

Anything.

  
_Shit._

  
Really, the first five days aren't too bad. He's drugged to the gills, and Sam leaves the room so he can chomp down his toast doggy style (which is to say that the first thing Sam has to do when he comes back in is shake out his covers to get rid of the crumbs he's left all over them from pushing buttery toast around with his mouth until he got a good hold). Pulls down Dean's sweats so he can pee, and pulls them up again without a word when Dean clears his throat through the half-open door, and refills his water glass when it's too empty for Dean to lean forwards and suck as much as he can without lifting it from the tabletop and the only option left is to lap it up like a dog. Which. Y'know. 

Is kinda stretching it.

  
But after a few days Dean's made a few new experiences.

  1. Morphine (even in pill form) makes you constipated. Correction; It makes _him_ constipated, and that's all he cares about right now, because he's not constipated anymore. He's not... He hasn't.. _Fuck._

  2. His teeth are furry. From soft drinks and the murderous look he bestowed on Sam when he neared him with a tooth brush a few days ago.

  3. He really ( _really_ ) needs a clean t-shirt. Really.




  
It's a sucky day. Sam's out, because.. Well. Surprisingly enough, Dean hasn't been a joy to be around lately and a fit of compassion on Sam's part and pure humiliation on Dean's part had him..

Well.

  
Let's just say that door is lucky to still be hinged after the way Sam crashed it against the door frame earlier. 

  
And isn't _that_ a fucking doozy? Dean's sitting with his legs crossed on his bed, and has been for the last three hours, ready to throw in the towel and accept all the help Sam has stored up just for him and Sam is fucking nowhereto be found.

And.. Yeah, he should've kept his stupid mouth shut, but _so friggin' what?_

  
His phone lies on the table, out of reach and useless. It called once, two hours ago, but.. Yeah. 

Right. 

  
It took him ten minutes to realize his mistakes, another fifteen to take proper stock of his problems, and a further three to grasp the complete idiocy of his acts and words. He was ready to crawl and beg before the first half hour was over, because he had his legs tightly crossed after 29 minutes, and he knows this because he's been watching the clock on the wall tick and tick and fucking _tick_ while his guts squirm and his arms throb and his tongue has a little sore spot on it from where he's been rubbing it against his furry teeth obsessively.

And he needs a fucking shave, too. He _hates_ growing a beard. Especially when it's not to prove his masculinity (it's a man's right to grow a beard from time to time, just because he _can)_ , but rather because he's got bananas for hands.

  
The clock ticks closer to four hours before the door open, and by that time Dean's a sweaty mess leaning against the door frame to the bathroom contemplating how to use the door handle to pulls his pants down so he can use the toilet, wondering if he's the only one who finds himself in these kinds of situations. Ten minutes ago he was scratching his back Baloo-style against the wall, and now he's trying to pull down his pants with a _door handle._ He's got four different apologies planned out, word for word, three ways of telling Sam he needs to _go_ without making it sound too colorful or undignified, but they all disappear the moment he needs them. Sam's got rain in his hair, and with him comes a cold gust of air from outside. Fresh and cool on Dean's sweaty face. 

“Dude” he says. “I need to..”

And.. That's all he needs to say, because Sam just seems to _get it._ He's not sure if the sweaty face, the needy expression or the fact that he's standing in the doorway to the bathroom is the biggest clue, but it hardly matters.

Sam puts down the two bags he's got in one hand right next to the door, leaves his coat in a cold, damp lump on Dean's bed and is over at his side in two seven mile-steps. 

  
What follows is both the best and worst experience of Dean's personal life since the “forced bath-incident of 1985”. It's not _fun,_ per se, calling for your brother to wipe your ass when you've passed thirty, and it takes him back to days in daycare and...

He clears his throat out loud to pull himself out of _that_ particular train of thought. 

  
Sam's gaze takes him in as he stands before him, looking cleaner and better groomed than anything Dean's ever seen in his life. He feels slightly pathetic, his banana-arm (now complete with several stickers from actual bananas decorating it, courtesy of Sam) hanging in a grubby sling from his aching neck, trapping little crumbs from his last piece of toast against the stained t-shirt he's _still_ wearing, and realizes the only things he's changed in a week are the bandages on his other arm, covering the however many stitches he needed. 

  
He clears his throat again, and Sam startles out of his own little world. 

“Shower?” He says, and Dean feels himself flush bright red. 

  
It turns out _quite_ as awesome as he'd hoped. Sam doesn't get naked, because.. Sam's showered in the last week and doesn't smell like. 

Well.

No need to go _there,_ either _._

But really, his hands are quick and efficient and professional. He doesn't speak, doesn't make this a more memorable experience than he has to. Doesn't tickle Dean where he knows from years and years of tumbling around on the floor in wrestling matches that Dean will collapse in giggles from the look alone, and Dean is pretty grateful for that. He really is, even if he doesn't say it. 

  
He's getting his hair dried, is pretty sure he looks like a grumpy and unshaven hedgehog from the way Sam rubs the white towel over his head when they escape the shower, when Sam stops for a moment. 

“Shave?” He says, as if he's trying to carry the momentum of Dean _finally_ allowing him to help as far as he possibly can, and Dean flushes even redder, and nods again. 

  
He'd rather take another crap, really, because nothing is quite as intimate as someone putting a razor to your face. Sam's eyes are slightly narrowed in concentration as he works, and Dean tilts his head back to allow access to his throat.

Which. Y'know. Isn't his most usual move. 

It feels personal and about as far as he's willing to let Sam inside his personal space-bubble (which is about to be cast in cement, by the way).

  
It's only ten minutes later before he's proven wrong again. 

  
His tongue can't stop going over his smooth teeth, shaven just as close as his face is, and the slightly stiff fabric from clean clothes on his skin feels like heaven. The bed is warm and clean again, and there isn't a single toast crumb in the vicinity. There are two painkillers dissolving in his stomach, which is emptier than it's been in days and thank _god_ that bit's over, and he can rub his face on the pillows without wanting to go chop his own face off when Sam approaches him with one of the bags he brought in earlier. 

  
And suddenly, Dean can't stop his stomach from doing a massive cart-wheel of hunger, suddenly ravenous and starved for food. The slightly greasy smell of fast food hits him so hard he can't help but wonder where his nose has been all this time, before he remembers the pungent smell of stale sweat from earlier and feels his face heat up again. _Again._

  
Sam just kind of smirks and doesn't ask as he tips Dean's fries into the top half of his hamburger container, and dips four of them in ketchup all at the same time. Just like Dean prefers to do. He holds them out, and Dean scowls. 

“Dude.” Sam says. 

“ _This_ is where you choose to draw the line? Are you fucking serious? Man, I just wiped your...”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever” Dean snaps, scowling up at Sam. His stomach twists with hunger again, and he swears he can feel his spine through his empty belly.

“Uh. Did you.. Salt those?”

Sam grins and nods, and Dean swallows his pride along with four ketchup-y fries with extra salt before he eats a quarter pounder in five bites and sucks down a chocolate milkshake staring at the muted television because he knows what it's costing Sam to not force feed him an algae-smoothie or.. Whatever. 

  
His eyes droop with exhaustion, his belly full and warm in _just_ the right way, his lips slightly swollen from the salty fries. Sam settles himself down on the bed next to his with his laptop against his knees. Fondness wells in him suddenly, just as the pain in his arms settle and ease out in a pill-induced break from the usual throb. 

  
“Thanks, man” he mumbles, and Sam smiles at him. Dimpled, open. 

“No problem.”

And tomorrow they get to do it all over again.  


End file.
